Camping at Mount Rainier

We had a lot of fun on our first camping trip of the year going to Mount Rainier with some friends.  We only camped one night as a little bit of a test run for our kids but they did great!  It was so fun to be outside and get to have a campfire and smores.  Alden loved being outside and I was a little surprised, but even when we were camping he told me when he was ready to go to bed and then went to sleep in the tent by himself while Drew and I were still outside.  I mean, he knew that we could still hear him and we were right there but I know some kids would not go to bed that easily while camping.  It was nice for us so that we could stay up a little later and play a game with our friends and see the stars before going to sleep.  Here are some pictures from our camping experience.

Alden got this shovel from his friends and wanted to carry it everywhere.

Drew had fun building the fire and he had some boys very interested and wanting to watch.

Alden was very curious about what Daddy was doing.

At least the fire lit easily and we got really lucky because the next day a fire ban went into effect for the whole park.

Alden had a great time just sitting in his chair and watching the fire.

Alden eating a snack and still just watching the fire.

Anders was really calm and content for our whole camping trip.  He just wanted to look around and take everything in.

We had fun making smores.  Alden had fun roasting the marshmallow but then he didn't want to eat it.  He just wanted to eat the graham cracker and chocolate.  I love a good smore so I thought this was one of the best parts of the trip!

This was Anders the next morning when we woke up.  We had him all bundled up so that there was no way he got cold during the night.

Anders loved just looking around at everything in the tent and luckily he slept pretty well while we camped so I did get quite a bit of sleep.

Our breakfast the next morning turned into a little bit of an experience.  The bacon came out really good but I had forgot to bring any oil or pam so we couldn't spray the pan before trying to cook our pancakes.  Therefore, it turned into pancake crumble because you couldn't get the pancake to flip.

Drew ended up deciding he was just going to slow cook all the pancake batter at the same time and see what happened.  The batter did eventually cook through and mostly tasted like pancake but I think the texture was a little off.  It still got eaten but we did have to throw the pan away when we were done because there was no way we could get the pancake batter off that had burned to the pan.

Anders slept through breakfast but I took a picture because it shows really well how he always likes to pull his blanket or burp cloth up to his face.  It is cute but also makes me a little nervous sometimes.

I took these right before we took the tent down but I think it documents pretty well how much extra space we had in the tent.  

We were very comfortable and definitely not short on space.

Our tent took up the whole tent pad but at least it did fit. =) 

This was Anders as we were packing everything up.  I just love watching him discover new things, like his hands.  We had a great time camping and it is nice to know that our kids camp well so we can go again!  After we finished packing up it was on to a day of exploring the park.